Leyland Finally Finds Way to East His Pain

The ghosts of Francisco Cabrera and Steve Avery and all the chilling Octobers of Pittsburgh past were laid to rest Sunday night.

Jim Leyland went the distance.

The Florida Marlin manager went the distance in more ways than one, in fact.

He came to Florida to have the chance to win, and when his Marlins had won the ultimate prize, Leyland, 52, reacted with an emotional victory lap, circling Pro Player Stadium, his right arm raised exultantly as a crowd of 67,204, already rocking in response to a 3-2, 11-inning triumph over the Cleveland Indians in Game 7 of the World Series, roared its approval.

It was similar to Cal Ripken Jr. circling Camden Yards after breaking Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games, but Leyland, who would carry a Marlin flag over the final yards of his lap, said later: “I’m no facsimile of Cal Ripken. I wouldn’t insult him by taking a lap because he did it.

“Other than the night I married this lady over here [he pointed to his wife, Katie], this is simply the happiest night of my career. I wanted to share that with the fans, thank them for their support. I got a little crazy, but I’ve made an . . . of myself more than once.”

Leyland carried more than the flag. There were the frustrations of Pittsburgh. There were 18 years of riding buses as a minor league player, manager and coach. There were 33 years in the game, waiting, wondering.

Edgar Renteria, the Florida shortstop, slashed a single up the middle to score the decisive run Sunday night, ending a taut and tense game that significantly raised the quality quotient of this maligned World Series and ending the wait for Leyland, who didn’t forget his roots.

He said he was dedicating the victory to “all those guys managing in the winter leagues and the instructional leagues, all those guys who have spent time in Clinton, Iowa. You’re looking at a back-up catcher in double-A who finally arrived at the pinnacle of this sport tonight, so there’s hope for all those guys out there. Don’t give up, and maybe things will work out for them like it did for me.”

Leyland’s voice cracked like it did on that October night in 1992 when an anonymous pinch-hitter named Francisco Cabrera deprived Leyland of a trip to the World Series in the seventh game of the National League championship series. Like it did in 1991 when he went seven games against the Atlanta Braves before losing the championship series to the pitching of John Smoltz and Steve Avery.

It all became a distant memory in that 11th inning Sunday night, and Leyland said this was a World Series he was also dedicating to Muhammad Ali, a fact he had shared with his players but otherwise kept secret.

Leyland said he has been “using the champ as our theme during the whole Series” and was going to have him come to the clubhouse in Cleveland but decided against it because Ali wasn’t that well and the media would have found out and turned it into a frenzy.

“Champ, this is dedicated to you. We’re not in your class, but I know you’re proud of us tonight,” Leyland said.

Why Ali?

“I told the guys going into the World Series that he fought a lot of people, but when it came to fighting for the heavyweight title, which in our case is the Series,” Leyland said, “he trained harder, better, smarter and with more dedication.

“I said I wanted to pattern this Series after his career, that if we were going to be the heavyweight champ, we’d have to do the things he had done because we were going to be fighting a Joe Frazier, a Sonny Liston.

“We were going to be fighting the big guys.”

Melodramatic? Rambling?

Leyland, of course, is to be excused.

He waited, wondered, and finally took a team of mercenaries to that long-denied pinnacle.

The irony is, the ultimate night could be his last as Marlin manager.

If owner Wayne Huizenga, claiming losses of $34 million this year after his $89-million free-agent spending spree, is unable to get political support for a retractable-roof stadium in the next two weeks and maintains plans to sell the team, Leyland has an escape clause in his five-year, $7.5-million contract.

Huizenga hugged Leyland, splashed in the clubhouse champagne, and said he hoped the enthusiasm of this October didn’t end with the civic parade.

“This was our goal,” he said of the Series triumph, “but as of tomorrow the Series is over and then we have to look to next year and what it’s going to take. We have to have the revenue that a new stadium produces.

“I think we’ve demonstrated that South Florida will support a competitive team, but we need the facility to cope with the weather and compete with teams like the Indians and Orioles and Braves, and the revenue they’re producing in new stadiums.”

A first and last hurrah for these Marlins in their fifth year?

No one would say that, but it’s possible.

In the meantime, while much has been made of the money Huizenga put into the team, the Marlins under Leyland showed heart, winning despite the loss of Alex Fernandez and rallying for their four Series victories from deficits of 1-0, 7-3, 4-2 and 2-0.

Will Leyland be leaving, as some have speculated, insisting he is unhappy in the Florida environment?

His long-awaited victory lap Sunday night was a round trip.